Black Saturday
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: It started with a routine 'person in distress' call, and ended in murder; and Matt Casey was at the forefront of everything in between.
1. Chapter 1

Black Saturday

Kelly Severide was on the apparatus floor as 81 and Ambo rolled up the apron and pulled into their respective slots. They had been dispatched to a 'person in distress' call and that had been almost an hour ago. As he approached the rig, he saw Casey throw his door open, jump out, and before Severide could say anything, he saw Casey take off running, looking like he was going to be sick. He looked back to the trucks and the next person he saw was Sylvie.

"Brett, what happened? What's wrong with-"

But the blonde paramedic didn't answer, wouldn't look at him and quickly walked past him, clutching her stomach and her lips pursed tightly together, all the color had been drained out of not only her face but it almost looked like it had been drained out of her hair too, she looked like the embodiment of a real ghost.

"What's going on?" Kelly turned to the remaining firefighters. "What happened on that call?"

"Trust me, Severide, you don't want to know," Otis said as he and Cruz also wandered off, looking like they were going to puke.

He was getting nowhere quick and getting frustrated even faster than that, by now even the rest of the guys from Squad, seated at their table, had had their interests piqued by everybody's strange behavior. Kelly walked over to the two older remaining firefighters and demanded to know, "What the hell is going on?"

Mouch was stone faced but his eyes looked hollow. All he said to Kelly was, "Did you ever see 'The Exorcist'?"

Kelly rolled his eyes at the question, not sure what the hell that had to do with anything. "Yeah?"

"Well that would've been a cakewalk compared to what we just went through," and with that, he too walked off.

"Herrmann?" Kelly was just about to start yelling, desperate to get some answers.

Even Christopher looked like he was fighting with everything he had not to be ill right there. He grimly shook his head and told Kelly, "I've seen a lot of horrible things on this job, Severide...but what we saw today, _has_ to cap them all."

"Will somebody tell me what the hell happened today?" he demanded to know.

Herrmann was barely holding himself together as he started to stagger off and said, "Yeah, I'll tell you, first I gotta talk to Boden, and see if he can get Orlovsky down here. After what I just saw, I think we need to have this whole firehouse soaked in holy water, I think we need some sanctification or something."

* * *

Kelly could hear Casey violently throwing up before he even entered the bathroom. Everybody else had come and gone but Casey had been in there for almost ten minutes, and it didn't sound like he was going to be out anytime soon either. Severide stood by the sinks and waited, curiously and concernedly, for Casey to finally leave the middle stall. At this rate Severide was surprised Casey still had anything left in him to throw up, but apparently he did, and it was a couple more minutes before he finally heard the toilet flush and saw the door open and Casey walk out, looking as white as a bag of flour.

"Are you okay?" Kelly asked as Casey staggered over to the sink and rinsed his mouth out.

"No," Matt answered simply. He gripped the countertop for a second to support himself, then stepped away and told Kelly, "I have to talk to Boden...and I have to get out of here."

"Go where?" Kelly asked as he followed him out of the bathroom.

"I have to go see someone," Casey said as he stormed down the corridor.

"See who?" Kelly wanted to know.

* * *

Voight came down the stairs at the 21st District and was met with his desk sergeant, who had a determined look on her face.

"What is it, Trudy?" he asked.

"Hank, we've known each other for 20 years," Trudy crossed her arms, "and you _know_ I'm a good cop, right?"

"That's true."

"I love being a cop, and I hated like hell that after I took that buckshot to the hip they stuck me behind a desk ever since then."

"I know that, Trudy."

"Nevertheless I come in here every day, on time, I do my job, and I do it damn well because even though I can't go out on patrol or undercover anymore, I still love being a cop and I'm still a damned good one," she told him.

"Nobody's disputing that," Voight said, slightly confused, "so what did you buzz me for?"

"As much as I still love coming in and doing my job every day," Trudy turned a hand in gesture towards her desk, revealing Matt Casey sitting on it, "This annoying paperweight is making that very difficult to do right now."

Voight stepped over towards the desk and noted the gravely serious expression on the younger man's face.

"Lieutenant Casey?" he tested the waters.

"Sergeant Voight," Casey returned curtly.

Voight turned back to his desk sergeant with a confused look on his face.

"Now you see the problem?" Trudy asked. "Ordinarily I'd bust his ass for obstructing with my job, but as determined as he was to see you, I thought it might be worth checking on. He made it clear he wasn't moving until he spoke with you personally."

Voight nodded. "Okay, I'll take it from here." He went over to the desk and asked, "What's going on, Casey?"

"I need to talk to you," Casey hopped off the desk, "_Now_" he added just as Voight opened his mouth to respond.

"Okay, we'll go upstairs."

"No _now_, if everybody coming in here has to hear this then that's just the way it is, they need to know what's going on."

"Casey, calm down."

"Don't tell me to..." Casey retched and choked and just made it to the wastebasket before throwing up again.

"Whoa!" Trudy exclaimed as she took a step back.

Voight crouched down beside the lieutenant, who was breathing heavily as the bout of nausea seemed to pass.

"I'm sorry," Casey said as he came up for air.

"It's okay."

"Do we need to call an ambulance?" Trudy asked.

Casey shook his head. "I'm fine...I'm fine..." shakily he pulled himself to his feet, then he realized he actually was shaking.

Voight's hands were all over him, it took Casey a minute to realize he was feeling his forehead, then his pulse points.

"No fever, you're not high on something are you, Casey?"

"No!"

He felt Voight's arm around his shoulders, strong, tight, wordlessly letting Casey know he was going to do what the sergeant said.

"Come on upstairs, let's figure this out," Hank said as he walked Casey over to the stairs and scanned in.

* * *

Casey sat in the chair across from Voight at his desk, and it was several minutes before he could actually even form the words to explain what had happened.

"All we knew about the call was 'person in distress', could mean anything...we go to the address...and it's this building we've driven past hundreds of times, never stopped to think what it was. Up close we find out it's a clinic. And it's not the first time we've been called to an abortion clinic, stuff happens, EMS has to rush them to the hospital because something went wrong during the procedure. And, I still can't figure out why we were called along with Ambo, but right away things aren't adding up."

"What do you mean?" Voight asked.

"All the previous times we respond to calls at a clinic of _any_ kind, the doctor is outside waiting for us, giving us the patient's medical history so we know what we're looking at. The doctor was nowhere to be found, there was _nobody_ out there waiting for us. We go in the door and the receptionist looks surprised to see us, we're trying to figure out who called. Nobody even _knows_ where the doctor is. Finally somebody admits they have a patient in distress, takes us down the hall..."

Casey had already been pale when he came in, he became white as a sheet before he spoke again.

"She couldn't have been anymore than 15...I know it's legal but...actually seeing it you just freeze for a minute. She was about dead, _nobody_ could give us her medical history, explain what happened, anything about her, while the paramedics were working on her, I..."

He remembered marching out of the room and down the hall and back towards the receptionist and he remembered fighting the urge to jump over the desk and throttle her as he used every four letter word in the book, summing it up with an order to get the doctor there immediately.

"I was ready to tear the place apart...this girl is bleeding out and where the hell is the doctor? Why doesn't _anybody_ in the whole place know _anything_ about her to help us out? Guy finally comes up, says he was getting her chart ready for the hospital, which by the way, doesn't have a damn thing on it that helps us know the situation. Hank, you should've seen this guy...he's got this bloody smock on but under that he's got on an expensive suit and shoes that I _know_ cost more than all of us on Truck make in a week. What happened to all those doctors we always hear about who are killing themselves to pay back their med school student loans?"

"You were saying something, Matt?" Voight wanted to get the full story and decided to steer Casey back off the detour.

"Anyway," Casey shook his head, "we're asking very simple questions so the paramedics know how to help her, he can't tell us how far along she is, when she first started having symptoms, when she even came _in_ to the clinic that day, he can't tell us one damn thing to help and she's still in the stirrups bleeding to death. It turned out that she'd had an abortion yesterday, came back today because the pain was so bad and she couldn't stop bleeding, he said they _missed_ something during the procedure. And to hear him say it, you'd think it was some kind of joke."

Voight kept his usual stone face the whole time Casey talked. Over the years the guys at 51 had worked with the 21st District enough to get a basic idea how Voight worked, but Casey was still worried that he hadn't gotten through to the sergeant.

"I follow so far, Matt, but why come to me?" Voight asked.

"Hank...that girl was bleeding out probably half an hour before we got her out of there, if that prick doctor had actually been there or bothered to answer _any_ of the paramedics' questions, she could've been moved out in five minutes tops. _Where_ was he while all that was going on? Why the hell was he _hiding_? He _wasn't_ getting her chart ready, so what the hell was he doing all that time? He had to know she could die if we didn't move fast enough."

"Who called?" Voight asked.

Casey sighed. "I don't know. Nobody there would admit to calling 911, only one of the women working there even admitted there was a problem. This is _not_ a one-time thing, Voight, I stake my career as a firefighter on that. Everybody in that whole place was cagey, watching our every move, you'd think we were going to find Fidel Castro if we just looked behind the right corner, nobody wanted us looking around too much."

"Were there other patients there?" Voight asked.

"I don't know, it's a big place, while I was screaming at the receptionist, the others were going around opening doors trying to find somebody that could help...and I heard them..." what little color had returned to Casey's face washed out of it again.

"What happened?"

"When we walked in...the place was clean enough, looked on the up and up...but you start opening doors and actually looking around, there're dried blood stains on the floors, roaches, garbage piled waist high in corners, Cruz came out puking, he said there was a tray full of surgical instruments that hadn't been cleaned...maybe _ever_, whatever was on them dried and stuck to them long ago."

"The doc know they saw any of that?"

"I'm not sure he even cared," Casey said. "The nurses, or whatever they're called, didn't want anyone looking around but they couldn't really stop us. This guy comes up all smiles, acts like everything's just fine. Herrmann doubled back screaming..." Casey lost any and all ability to speak for a few seconds as he tried to process what he'd found out. "What is it they say they do with the babies after the procedures? 'Dispose' of them? Incinerate them?" He grimly shook his head, and swallowed hard, trying not to throw up again. "They were there."

"What do you mean, there where?" Voight asked.

"In trash bags...in buckets...lined up all over the floor...Herrmann...he came back and looked like he was going to take the receptionist's head off just because she was there...I mean it's impossible that they don't have any idea what he's doing, that makes them just as guilty, right? How could anybody work there, and see this, and _not_ report it?"

"Did you get the doctor's name?" Voight asked.

Casey wordlessly reached in his pocket and shoved a business card across the desk. "They really think you're going to refer people to this guy, there were about 50 cards on the front desk."

Voight picked up the card. "Dr. Nathan Goodson."

"That name mean anything to you?" Matt asked.

"Vaguely, heard it mentioned at some of the public functions I've had to attend, never heard anybody say what he specialized in," Voight said, "and since I don't go to doctors, I never asked what it was he does."

"Hank...this is a licensed doctor, a certified doctor, how the hell is he allowed to run his licensed clinic like some back alley butcher shop?" Casey wanted to know.

"Good question, if what you say is true, and I'm not questioning that, it sounds like this has been going on for a while, so where the hell is the Department of Health? They're supposed to inspect those places every year."

"Trust me, _nobody_ is inspecting that place," Casey said. "Who's responsible for this?"

"I'll look into it," Voight told him. "You said this isn't the first time you guys responded to an abortion clinic...this isn't the first time you responded to one like this either, is it?"

Casey looked down and shook his head.

"There was another one shortly after I graduated the academy," Casey told him. "Same thing, 'person in distress', we get there...the paramedics can't even get through the front door with the gurney because it's too narrow, they're told to go around to the back door. One of the nurses was there, the back door was locked, nobody knew where the key was, nobody even remembered the last time the back door _was_ unlocked. We bust down the door, paramedics go in...nobody was even _trying_ to fool anyone that walked in. As soon as we set foot in the place, the smell...there were stains all over the floor, some still fresh, the place was dingy so you couldn't see a lot of stuff, half of the lights didn't even work, by the time the paramedics got to the procedure room, the woman was already dead. I looked down and I about threw up, there was a streak of blood that went from the corridor to the operating table...I was standing in it and didn't realize it."

Voight leaned back in his chair as he took in the younger man's story.

"What happened?" he asked, knowing that that wasn't all there was to Casey's recollection.

It was a few seconds before Matt could actually answer, he just stared ahead with a frozen look in his eyes.

"My lieutenant yelled at me to grow up and get a grip," Casey finally answered. "I looked around at the guys got a couple more years on the job than me and they all looked like they were going to be sick too. He was the only one that could stomach being there. He said to get used to it because we'd be getting a lot more calls like that, the neighborhood was lousy with chop shops like that, they responded to them all the time."

"Did you?"

Casey shook his head. "I got transferred to 51 before I had to be a part of that again. And since then, the only calls we've gotten have been to legitimate, by-the-book places."

Casey felt Voight's eyes boring a hole into him, he decided to beat the sergeant to the punch.

"Everybody thinks because I always wanted kids that I can't be non-subjective about this," Casey said. "I always had to prove I could do my job no matter what, we always have to disassociate from the people we try and save on the job no matter what...but maybe they're right. I can be okay with it as long as I'm not there and I'm not seeing what happens or the aftermath of it, as long as I don't have to _think_ about what's happening...nobody can walk away from what happened today and _not_ think about it."

"The issue isn't your personal bias," Voight told him. "But if we look into this case and actually go after this guy and arrest him based on information obtained by your sayso, we have to make sure the defense can't spin it around as _being_ your own beliefs interfering with a legitimate doctor's work."

"There is nothing legitimate _about_ this, everybody knows what they saw," Casey said, "And if the board of health or whoever isn't going there to keep an eye on things, that's not just a corrupt doctor, that's a conspiracy and you know it, Hank."

"I know," he replied, "and we're going to find out what's going on, in the meantime don't go trying to deal with this yourself, we're already going to kick over a hornet's nest, I don't need you riling them up. We want to catch them offguard before they have time to clean house."

Casey nodded. "I understand. I just...I needed to make sure you realized how serious this is."

"Trust me, Casey," Voight told him, "When we nail this guy, he gets tossed in gen pop, the murderers and rapists of Cook County are gonna eat him for lunch."

"Good," was all Casey said in response. He stood up and found his legs were still shaking.

* * *

"What're you doing here?" Casey asked Severide as he walked out of the district.

"What'd he say?" Kelly asked.

"He said he'd look into it, and he'd better, if he doesn't I'm going to fix that 'doctor' myself," Casey said as he walked to his truck.

"This really got you shaken up, didn't it?" Severide asked as he followed Casey to the curb.

"I thought that was obvious for everyone," Casey said.

"Nobody else stormed off to see Voight," Kelly pointed out.

Casey turned to him, and said only, "If I'm going to tell you, what I just told Voight...I need a stiff drink, and not at Molly's."

"I know a place," Kelly told him.


	2. Chapter 2

Kelly sat on the bar stool next to Matt, who had polished off two stiff drinks and had downgraded to beer and was on his second bottle, Kelly just looked at him in awe.

"Why didn't you tell me what happened?" he asked.

"I thought you knew," Casey said simply as he looked at his bottle.

Severide blinked. "Why would you think I knew? You never told me, you apparently never told _anybody_ at 51-"

"I told Darden," Casey told him.

Kelly's eyes widened, "Andy? You told Andy but you didn't tell me?"

"I thought he'd tell you, you two talked about everything," Casey said.

"He never did."

They sat in silence for a moment as Casey pondered over that. Then he said quietly, "Maybe he did it out of respect for me." He swallowed another gulp of beer and added, "Besides, it was back when you were trying to prove yourself to Squad...what Boden would call, the peacock not wanting to associate with the crows. You barely said two words to me for a month."

"I..." Kelly thought back. "I didn't know that you felt that way."

"You weren't paying attention, all you focused on was making it on Squad," Casey said. "So why should I bother you with my problems?"

"But you told Darden?" Kelly still couldn't get over that fact.

"We were closer then," Casey said for an answer. "We had in common that you were largely ignoring both of us."

"Casey, I'm sorry, I didn't know..."

"Oh well," Casey shrugged dismissively.

Matt took another drink and told Severide, his eyes staring down at the countertop, "I didn't tell Voight everything that happened on that first call."

Kelly looked at him. "What else?"

Matt sighed and set his bottle down. He turned on his stool to look at Severide. "I don't know how long I stood there just looking at the blood, I was in shock, I couldn't move, I couldn't think...when I finally could I realized I was crying. The lieutenant...slapped me in front of everyone...I thought he'd broken my nose. Told me if I didn't man up I'd be kicked out of CFD, he couldn't have somebody working under him who went to pieces over every little thing."

"God," Kelly hissed, and asked again in disbelief, "And you didn't tell me?"

"What the hell was I going to say?" Casey asked. "Nobody else in the company spoke up, nobody said anything to me once we finished the call...when _I_ made lieutenant, the one thing in the back of my mind was 'Please, God, don't let us have another call like that', because I honestly had no idea how I'd handle it, or what I'd do if anybody working under me did the same thing I did."

He felt Severide's arm around his back, the last thing he wanted was to be pitied, but at the same time he couldn't bring himself to shake it off.

"For not being there, I think you held your own pretty well today," Kelly told him.

Casey shook his head and closed his eyes, asking, "Why did there _have_ to be a today? Why does this keep happening? Wasn't that supposed to be the whole point of legalizing abortion, that stuff like this couldn't keep happening, let alone by people who are actually licensed? Where the hell is everybody who's supposed to be keeping an eye on this?" He pushed Kelly's arm away and hopped up from the bar stool.

"Casey," Kelly said in mild alarm as he also got up.

"I'm not going over there and blowing this guy away, Severide," Casey said defensively, "but I want to know what the hell is going on and _why_ it is."

"Voight said he'd look into it, what more did you expect him to do?" Kelly asked.

"I expected Voight to go 'Voight' on this guy's ass like he does everybody else," Casey said.

"He never does that without knowing what he's looking at and you know it," Kelly said. "So maybe we need to help him find what he's looking for."

Casey did a double take and asked cluelessly, "How?"

"I don't know," Kelly admitted, "but there's got to be a way."

Casey scowled at him and asked, "So what, now you're getting involved because you feel guilty for what happened 15 years ago and I didn't tell you?"

"No," Kelly answered simply and genuinely, "because I saw a fire truck and an ambulance roll in today and _everybody_ walked off sick. You know that _never_ happens no matter _what_ we deal with on a call. Let's find a way to help Voight bust this prick."

"_How_?" Casey asked.

* * *

How indeed. Boden had sent Casey home for the rest of shift, but Kelly went back to 51 and poured over the question. He asked the guys from 81 about the call, each had their own gory details and they all wove together into one very clear picture of a house of horrors.

"There is _no_ way that nobody's reported this place to the health department," Otis said. "Which means that they're just not bothering to investigate, which means that somebody is on somebody's payroll."

"But the usual questions of who and why and where's all the money coming from pose something of a problem to answer," Mouch pointed out. "Now granted, I don't know much about the whole process, but it was my understanding that those procedures are reasonably priced to low income patients so they can afford it, and the rest are covered by taxes, grants, that kind of stuff."

"My tax dollars go to keep this flea infested sewer up and running?" Herrmann asked in shock. "I want a refund!"

A few different thoughts ran around in Severide's mind, he left the guys from Truck at their rig and walked across the apparatus floor as he thought about what could actually work. If anybody could take this guy down and make it stick, it would be Voight, to do that he'd need all the ammunition he could get. And the best way to get that would be...

Kelly wandered over to Ambo where Sylvie was taking inventory of the supplies. "Hey Brett, can I ask you a question?"

"What is it, Kelly?" she absently asked as she looked over the meds they kept on hand.

"Do you think anybody at that clinic would recognize you if you went back?" he asked.

That got her attention and she looked at him with a very puzzled expression on her face.

"What do you mean, Kelly?"

"Would you be willing to go back in that place?" he asked.

"Uh," she took in a sudden breath and said determinedly, "No."

"Sylvie, please, I've got an idea but I need a woman and it's either you or Connie and..." he looked behind him just to make sure she wasn't there, he turned back to Sylvie and confessed under his breath, "between you and me, I get scared telling her 'good morning'."

A vein appeared in Sylvie's forehead as she chewed the side of her lip and asked, "What kind of idea?"

* * *

"This is the place?" Kelly asked as he drove his Mustang up the street to the block the building was located at.

"Yep," Sylvie answered bluntly.

Kelly crouched down in the driver's seat to look up at the top floor of the 3 story building. "Looks like that hotel that serial killer Holmes ran." A key part of history for anybody who lived in the city of Chicago. Everybody knew the story, though not everybody could distinguish the facts from the myths, still, to all the Chicago natives it was a name associated with evil.

"How appropriate," Sylvie murmured.

Kelly noted a crowd of people lined along the wrought iron fence separating them from the clinic, some of them carrying signs and yelling.

"Were _they_ here yesterday?" he asked.

"I think so," she said, "I remember _somebody_ chucked a beer can at the ambulance."

"Unbelievable," Kelly said as he looked at the group of people, some of whom charged towards the car as they drove up to the gate.

As they pulled up to the gate, Kelly did a double take. "Is that...razor wire strung over the top of the gate?"

"Looks like it," Brett answered.

"Is that...to keep _them_ out...or someone else inside?" Kelly asked.

Sylvie just shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. The gate slid open like at a prison, then closed behind them as Kelly pulled the car into an empty slot. He noticed that most of the parking spaces _were_ vacant.

Sylvie sucked in a breath and let it back out and told him, "I don't know about this, Severide."

"You got your phone on?" Kelly asked.

She took out her phone and showed him it was recording, then she tucked it inconspicuously in the pocket of her jacket. Severide noticed that she had a white knuckled grip on the door handle. Kelly had a few ideas what they were getting into but knew nothing he'd heard could compare with what Brett actually saw. Living in Chicago, they'd all seen their share of hellholes all around the city, places that should not only be torn down by the city but be separated from the rest of society with a ring of fire so no innocents could possibly wander in by mistake. And Kelly knew nothing that they'd seen before ever affected the paramedic like what she knew they were about to walk into.

"I won't leave you," he told her. "We just go in, ask to see the doctor and see what happens."

Sylvie sucked in a couple more breaths, amping herself up. "Okay, I'm ready, let's do this."

Stepping out of the car they were instantly met with an onslaught of obscenities as people behind fence screamed at them.

"You had to deal with _that_ yesterday?" Kelly asked.

"Us not so much, other people coming in, yeah," Sylvie answered as they walked straight up to the door.

The smell of disinfectant immediately met Kelly as they entered the clinic. So far everything looked very professional and he guessed 'normal'. Everything was clean, brightly lit, a big vase of flowers on the front desk, there was a young woman behind the desk who smiled at them.

"Hello, do you have an appointment?" she asked as she checked a chart.

"Uh, no," Sylvie said, "I uh need to see Dr. Goodson."

"I'm sorry, he's not here right now, but we can help you," the woman said. "How far along are you?"

"Oh, uh..."

"Actually that's why we're here," Kelly said.

"Yeah," Sylvie laughed nervously, "I took a home pregnancy test this morning and it said negative, but I wanted to make sure."

"Oh I'm sorry," the woman told her, "we don't do that. But if you are pregnant, feel free to come back and we'll be very happy to take care of it for you."

Sylvie was dumbstruck and so was Kelly.

"Uh, where _is_ Dr. Goodson?" Kelly asked.

"He's volunteering his services at a family care clinic today," the receptionist answered. "He'll be in tomorrow night after 7."

Kelly and Sylvie looked at each other.

"Well uh...if he won't be in until then, why's the clinic open?" Kelly asked. "What do you do?"

"We take care of his patients when he's not here," she answered with a smile.

"Uh huh...do you take care of the patients like you...take care of the..." Sylvie cleared her throat, "uh, I'm sorry, I need to use the restroom."

The receptionist pointed the way down the hall, Severide and Brett made their way down the corridor, keeping an eye on everything.

"What do you think will happen if we just open some doors?" Kelly whispered to her.

"I'm scared to guess," she told him.

Kelly looked back and didn't see anyone behind them.

"Probably worth a try," he said.

They reached the restroom and Sylvie told him, "I just need a minute." She opened the door, then immediately stepped back, "Oh God."

Kelly looked over her head and saw the room was filthy, stains on the floor, a broken mirror over a rusted sink, wastebaskets overflowing with garbage, the doors off the stalls, the tanks on the toilets were cracked and chipped.

"I can't do this," Sylvie said, "let's just go."

They went back the way they came, and just before reaching the desk, Sylvie forced herself to maintain a normal smile and asked the receptionist, "Excuse me, do you have the address for that clinic Dr. Goodson's working at today?"

Automatically the woman scribbled it down and gave it to her, "He volunteers there on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

"Thank you," Kelly said as they walked out of there.

They exited the building and headed back to Kelly's car.

"Did you catch on to what she was saying in there?" Sylvie asked him.

"That the abortionist _not_ being at his abortion clinic is _not_ enough reason to send women home...meaning what?"

"Only one doctor's name on the sign," Sylvie noted, "that must mean that somebody else who's not licensed is doing-AHHH!"

Sylvie felt something hit her, then realized her clothes were wet, and looked down and saw herself covered in something that looked a lot like blood. The yelling outside the fence had suddenly gotten louder and at least one voice was loud enough to be decipherable over the others, screaming at the paramedic, "Baby killer!"

"KELLY!" Sylvie was just about to lose it as she looked at the dark red liquid that stained her clothes and her hands and felt it on her face and in her hair.

Severide turned on his heel and looked back at the crowd. "What the _hell_?"

"Severide, let's just get out of here," Brett told him, trying to ignore the thick red liquid that was plastered to her.

Kelly stormed off to the fence, ready to climb over it and kick the ass of whoever just did that. As he approached the fence he saw a small group of people who seemed to be in a fight, it looked like half a dozen people were trying to put a scraggly looking man in his 50s in a headlock, and people started punching each other.

"HEY!" Kelly yelled at them.

A wavy haired brunette woman in her 30s in blue jeans and a matching jacket broke loose from the melee and was first and foremost at the gate and told him, "We are so sorry, we didn't know he was going to do that. Is your girlfriend alright?"

"She's not my...what was that stuff?"

"Paint," a blonde man who looked as old as the woman, dressed in a plaid dress shirt and khakis, said as he gripped the bars, "we've tried to get him to understand he's not helping the cause with stuff like that, but he won't listen."

"She didn't go through with it, did she?" the woman asked Kelly.

"What?"

"I know she didn't, because you two weren't in long enough for them to have done it," the woman said.

Sylvie came up beside Severide at the fence. "What's going on, Kelly?"

"I am so sorry about that," the woman told her, and tried to explain what had happened over everybody else talking.

"What are you people all doing here?" Kelly wanted to know.

"Well first of all know that we're not all together," the woman told Kelly. "A lot of us don't know each other, so I guess you'd say we're all here for different reasons."

"The main one being terrorizing women who are already out of their minds with fear?" Sylvie asked.

"You look more terrified by what you just saw in _there_," the woman told her. Then she did a double take and said, "You're the one that brought out that girl yesterday and took her to the hospital."

"That's right," Sylvie said, not sure what direction the conversation would take with this little revelation.

"Then you're not pregnant. But what're you doing here?" the woman asked.

"Trying to get some information," Kelly stopped when he noticed a security camera propped on a tripod on the other side of the gate. "What's that for?"

"Protection," the man answered.

"Whose protection?" Sylvie asked, "from what?"

"You're not from around here, are you?" the woman asked.

"Not really," Sylvie shook her head.

"You better come over on this side before we explain," the man told them.

* * *

On the other side of the fence things seemed to have cooled down. A few people helped Sylvie get the worst of the paint washed off with bottled water and sanitary wipes some of the women had in their purses. She and Severide found out the man and woman who'd talked to them were Shawn Gills and Torrey Myers, members of a local organization that helped find adoptive families for pregnant women who couldn't keep their babies, and it turned out they actually weren't acquainted with over half of the people protesting the clinic.

"So how does this work, everybody just randomly shows up at the same time?" Kelly asked.

"In the beginning it was just a handful of people, it's taken years to spread the word this far, nobody wants to pay attention, nobody wants to admit an abortionist could possibly be doing anything wrong," Torrey said.

"I know abortion is a hot topic but-" Kelly was cut off.

"That actually has very little to do with it," she told him, "though some people are just here for that general cause, and some of them pay off to have in your corner." She pointed over to a gray haired woman in her 60s and a blonde college girl in her 20s. "See those two women?"

"Yeah?"

"That's Stacey Lynne and her daughter, Terri. We've gotten to know them very well over the months. Stacey went to the doctor because she thought she was pregnant. She wasn't even showing, but somehow it turned out she was 27 weeks along already. As soon as the doctor confirmed her pregnancy, he told her she needed to see his friend, an abortionist, because women her age were simply too old to have babies and she would surely die if she delivered."

"How old was she?" Sylvie asked.

"37."

"Oh you've got to be kidding."

"Herrmann and Cindy would tear that doctor to pieces," Severide told Brett.

"You said something about us terrorizing the women who come here?" Torrey asked. "Stacey's obstetrician went to her home in the middle of the day when he knew her husband was at work, to terrify her into thinking if she didn't abort her daughter, she would be born with a whole list of mental handicaps, physical defects, trying to convince her it was more humane to just take her out and sever her spinal cord with a pair of scissors."

"Oh God," Sylvie cringed.

"And as you can see, she was born perfectly healthy. So either the latest medical technology of 20 years ago was completely wrong, or that doctor lied his ass off."

"Well that would be enough to outrage anybody," Kelly said, "but that's not an excuse to threaten people."

"We don't, and they don't. Stacey opened her home to teen girls who get kicked out by their parents when they're pregnant. She tutors them so they can function on an adult reading level, finish school and get job training so they don't get stuck on welfare whether they keep their babies or not. Some of the people who show up here are teachers, lawyers, social workers, children's rights advocates, people who can actually help, who can offer choices to the girls and women who come here. But to hear Goodson's staff talk, people like her take these girls' choices _away_ from them. Ironic, ain't it? You actually ask them to consider all options, and you're being a close minded fascist."

"That's part of why we film everything," Shawn told them, "so everything's on the record. Anything they accuse us of, we can refute."

"Speaking of which, what did you mean by protection?" Kelly asked him.

"Dr. Goodson and his staff have accused members of our organization of vandalizing his property several times, police have threatened us for attacking him on nothing more than his word, so we've got our own cameras up that cover everything, everybody who comes and goes, anybody who gets inside the fence, and all angles around the clinic," Torrey explained. "Besides, after what that sick bastard did before-"

"What'd he do?" Sylvie asked.

"One day he came out and over here carrying a container of some kind and threw the contents on us, bodily fluids, blood and God knows what else and God only knows who it came from," she answered.

"My God, did you call the cops?"

"Yeah, but if you think they did anything, you can guess again," Shawn told them.

"It's ironic, isn't it?" Torrey asked. "If somebody put a bullet in that butcher's skull, it would be plastered on every news station across the country and he'd be made out to be a victim. We've seen it happen before. But that same nutjob kills the women coming to him for help, and _nobody_ pays attention, at best it's swept under the rug as a footnote, at worst..."

Kelly turned his head so fast he heard his neck pop. "What do you mean killed?"

"See?" she replied. "You didn't even know, did you?"

"Who'd he kill?" Sylvie asked.

"There's a reason we stand vigil here," Shawn told them. "Before we started filming everything, some members of our group who stood out here all day noticed three women go into the clinic who never came back out."

"What?" Sylvie's eyes bugged out.

"We've had people go in undercover every week asking about options, and get footage of the clinic, the conditions, everything, we've turned it over to the department of health, the business bureau, the police, _nobody_ does anything,_ nobody_ comes out to investigate," Shawn told them.

"Most women who come here drive up, some of the poorer ones just walk, people notice if a car doesn't leave the lot, but a poor migrant woman walks in, if people aren't paying attention, who's going to notice if she doesn't walk back out? Trust us, we've been doing this long enough to know, if a woman doesn't come out and leave of her own volition, the only way she _is_ coming out is on a gurney into an ambulance, but it's always in the same day. Three women go in, they don't come out by that same night, something is seriously wrong, and _nobody_ gives a damn," Torrey explained.

"Who'd you report it to?" Kelly asked.

"Most of the local cops, nobody investigated."

"Did you report it to the 21st District?" Severide asked.

"Hell no," Torrey replied. "Do you have any idea who's running that district?"

"Sergeant Hank Voight," Kelly answered.

"As dirty as he is, he's _got_ to be connected to Goodson," she said.

"You might be surprised," he responded.

"Have you picked up anything else on your cameras?" Sylvie asked.

"Depends on what you're looking for."

"I got a friend who'd be very interested in what you'd have to say, would you be willing to tell him what you told me?" Kelly asked.

"Why do you think we're out here?" Shawn asked. "We try to tell everyone what's going on, most don't listen, it's anybody's guess which officials are in his pocket."

"And we're well familiar with all their talking points to try and rationalize what's going on," Torrey said. "Nobody would stand by those arguments if we were talking about a veterinary clinic where animals were subjected to the same conditions."

"Are you going to be here tomorrow?" Kelly asked.

"Somebody's here every day," Torrey explained. "If we're not here, somebody else can tell you everything you need to know."

"One more thing," Kelly said, "did you know Goodson's not even here today?"

"We're not out here for _his_ benefit," the brunette woman told him. "Somebody has to try and warn those girls what they're walking into."

"But you know he's not here to work on them," Sylvie said.

"And _you_ noticed the clinic is still open for business today, what does that tell you?" Torrey responded. "You think they're just telling everyone to come back when he's in?"

"Well..." Sylvie looked to Kelly. "Come to think of it, the woman did say 'they' take care of his patients when he's not there."

Kelly looked at them with wide disbelieving eyes, "You mean he has _them_ do abortions for him?"

"And administer the anesthetic drugs, and _none_ of them are licensed, they're barely trained at all," Shawn told them. "Half of the women working there started in high school."

"You got that on your undercover camera?" Sylvie asked.

"And plenty more where that came from," he answered.

"Oh yes," Kelly said determinedly, "my friend is going to _love_ talking to you."


	3. Chapter 3

"You did _what_?" Casey asked as Kelly finished explaining what he and Brett had done.

"Casey, there are a ton of people there, they know stuff, they have it on video, this is what Voight needs to nail this guy," Kelly told him.

"Kelly, are you _insane_? Do you have any idea all the things that could've gone wrong?"

"Casey it's fine, the guy wasn't even there, and his staff had no idea who we were," Kelly said. "You need to talk to these people and you need to bring Voight in on it."

Casey sighed, and asked, "When?"

"I told them we'd be back tomorrow, that's when the guy's going to be there, it'd be the perfect time for Voight to bust him," Kelly told him.

Casey looked at him and after a minute finally said, "I didn't know that abortion clinics were open on weekends...I thought..." he couldn't finish the sentence, apparently he didn't need to.

"I never really gave it much thought either, I just figured they were a Monday-thru-Friday operation," Kelly said.

Casey paced around his living room a couple times before he said unsteadily, "I need to sit down."

"You okay?" Kelly asked.

"I don't know..." Casey looked at him. "Be honest with me, Kelly. What does it mean that as long as I don't have to think about what's going on in those places, even the legitimately run ones...that I can be okay with it, as long as I don't have to know about it? What does that make me?"

"Human," Kelly answered.

Casey sighed and looked down at his shoes.

"I remember when Heather was pregnant, Andy was so excited, he showed the sonograms to everybody at the firehouse...there was no sugar coating it, those were his kids, they were _babies_, he already had their names picked out as soon as he knew she was pregnant."

"I know," Kelly reminisced with a smile, "I remember."

Casey hunched over in his chair and pressed his arms between his legs.

"Everybody always thought, that since I always wanted kids, that I was too emotional about the subject...maybe they're right, maybe I am, but I just don't get how you could look at this living, growing, thriving thing, and have somebody kill it. And it doesn't matter what wording you use, before the procedure the baby is living, it's growing, it's moving, we _see_ them moving on a 3D ultrasound, we can _hear_ the heartbeats, and then after the procedure, it's in little pieces in a toxic waste bag, if that's not killing then I don't know what is."

"I never said you were emotional," Kelly told him, his tone implying he was trying to lighten the mood slightly.

"Everybody else then," Casey replied. "And what's everybody say? It doesn't matter what _we_ think because _we_ can't ever get pregnant. Can you imagine what Andy would've done if Heather had had either of the boys aborted?"

"He would've lost his mind," Kelly stated matter-of-factly.

"But that's not supposed to matter," Casey said. "Only what she wants."

"Thank God Heather wanted the same thing Andy did," Kelly replied.

"Most of the time I try to avoid this topic at all costs, Kelly, I just can't think about it without getting sick," Casey told him. "If _anybody_ saw what we saw in those places on the job...if anybody saw what we saw on last shift...what I saw 15 years ago..." he bent his head down and pressed a hand to his mouth like he was going to be sick again.

Kelly sat down beside him and placed a hand on his back.

"You need to talk to those people tomorrow, Casey. I think they've got enough Voight can deliver this to the State's Attorney with a big fat bow on top and put this guy away for life."

Casey groaned and said, "I hope so, Kelly...I hope so."

* * *

"Talk to Voight?" Kelly asked as they got out of his car the next morning and got ready to approach the crowd outside the gate.

"Yeah, he said he'll be down in half an hour," Casey answered, "he's found a judge he can get a quick warrant from, he's bringing him down too to speed up the process, figures it'll make a good argument if he can see the footage for himself." He looked at the large group and asked Kelly, "Do you recognize anyone?"

Severide looked around trying to spot a familiar face, but found himself momentarily distracted by some people dressed in black cloaks and with devil horns and pitchforks. He definitely didn't remember seeing them yesterday, and he knew by now he shouldn't be surprised, but it still blew his mind how some people acted protesting clinics like this, and he wondered if those people _actually_ thought they were accomplishing something. He turned his attention back to the normally dressed people, and finally he pointed and said, "There they are, come on."

They made their way through the crowd that was divided up between people screaming, carrying signs, talking to each other, praying, and just standing around waiting for someone to show up.

"Hey," Kelly addressed the two people he'd talked to the day before, "Torrey, Shawn, this is my friend, Matt Casey."

"Nice to meet you," Matt shook their hands.

"You used to be an alderman, didn't you?" Torrey asked.

"Uh...yes, I was," Casey was slightly taken aback. It had been months since anybody had acknowledged his brief stint in politics and he'd hoped by now that had died out from everyone's memory.

"She has an eye for faces," Kelly told him.

"It's too bad we couldn't have met you when you were still in office," she told him, "maybe something would've been done then."

"Well we're trying to do something now," Casey said. "There's a cop who's coming down later to listen to what you have to say."

"You actually got a cop to come here? How'd you swing that?" Shawn asked.

"You don't want to know," Kelly told him, remembering their discussion the other day, but secretly anxious to see the looks on their face when Voight finally showed up.

"Oh my God, you were there too when they brought that girl out the other day," Torrey said to Casey.

Casey's eyes widened. "You really _do_ have an eye for faces."

"Do you know what happened to her?" she asked.

"Usually once we take patients to the hospital we're not informed of their conditions. But I checked it out anyway, she's recovering, it's going to take a while but the doctors think she'll be alright."

"Oh thank God."

"So Kelly says that you've got stuff on your cameras that could be used as evidence against Goodson," Casey said.

"If they can't make a case against him for murder there ought to be about 200 other things they can bust him on," Torrey said. "It really makes me puke that the law draws a line between what counts as killing a baby, and what merely counts as wrongful handling of a corpse, either way, as many bodies as there are in that place-"

"You've seen the bodies?" Casey asked, his eyes wide in disbelief.

"Dozens of them."

Casey took a step back and felt his head spinning. Trying not to overthink on the subject since he just didn't have the stomach for it, he knew it was only logical that whatever Goodson was doing now he'd been doing a long time, still, the idea that he'd _regularly_ keep the bodies of the babies hidden in back rooms of his clinic...he just couldn't think about it.

"Listen, we can get into that later when the cops are here," Shawn told her, then addressed the two firefighters, "You should know that Goodson came back early today."

"I thought he wasn't coming in until tonight," Kelly said.

"Well he's there now," Torrey told them, "and listen, we've been watching ever since he pulled up and they've been moving-"

There was a loud noise that shook the earth under them, and then everything went black.

* * *

Casey felt his head swimming, he felt something hard under his head, he tried to open his eyes but he couldn't get them to work. He tried a few more times, and finally his eyelids lifted and he could see, and he was looking up at the sky, which when they first arrived was fairly clear, now, there was a lot of smoke in the air, and debris flying all over. He could hear noises all around him but it was muffled like he was underwater. His face felt wet on one side, something was poking him in the chest, in the cheek, the arm, everything else felt numb. He didn't have the strength to sit up, so he focused on moving his eyes around to see what was going on.

Everybody was either on the ground, or standing trying to help the ones who were on the ground. Everybody was screaming, some people were crying. Kids. Some of them had brought their kids, and now they too were laying on the ground hurt, bleeding, their clothes and skin blackened, but from what? All around him people were lacerated by large shards of broken glass, where had they come from? Some people were barely conscious. From somewhere he could hear sirens blaring, but they sounded so far off. Casey tried to move his body, one leg moved, the other one felt like it was weighted down. He did his best to turn over on his side to get a different view.

Past the iron gate, the clinic's windows had been blown out and black smoke was pouring out from all directions. Casey thought he knew what it meant but his brain couldn't get his mouth to actually form the words he was trying to think.

And then, through the corner of his eye, he saw something. He rolled onto his side, and his heart dropped.

Kelly was sprawled on the ground, his eyes were closed and he wasn't moving.

"Kelly!" the word sounded so distant that Casey wasn't even sure he'd said it. He tried to get up but he fell flat on his face, something was wrong with his leg and his foot, but he didn't have time to worry about that. He crawled over to Kelly and tried to get him to wake up. He had a pulse, his heart was beating, his breathing was light but he was definitely breathing.

"Kelly, come on, Kelly, wake up!" Casey said as he slapped his face.

A low hum rose from Severide's throat and he tried to turn away from the disturbance.

"Kelly!"

"Hmm?" he sluggishly murmured as his eyes crinkled tightly shut, then he slowly opened them.

"Casey?" he asked, dazed. "What happened?"

The sirens got louder, and Casey could see flashing lights around him but he wasn't able to put together what it meant. Looking around he saw people trying to help each other, putting pressure on bleeding wounds, performing CPR on people who weren't breathing, rounding up all the children to make sure no one was missing. He couldn't be sure but it seemed to him that the group had suddenly gotten smaller, several people who had been there...when? A few minutes ago? An hour? Maybe more? However long it had been, some people who had been there before, were not there now, and he had no idea where they'd gone.

Somewhere in the back of his head, Casey would swear he could hear a familiar voice exclaiming, "Oh my God!" A few seconds later he felt hands on him and he was being turned over and looked up into Hank Voight's face.

"Matt, are you alright?"

"Help," Casey weakly got out and pointed towards Kelly, "Help him...help him..."

"Stay with me, Casey, we're gonna get everybody out of here," Voight told him. "What happened?"

"Help, please..."

"Where're you hurt, Matt?"

Casey felt something squeezing his leg and he screamed in pain.

"Take it easy, the docs will get you fixed up," Voight told him.

"Kelly...Kelly..."

"He'll be alright too, Casey, do you know what happened?"

"Please, help..." Casey croaked out just before he fell into unconsciousness.


	4. Chapter 4

"Matt? Can you hear me? Matt?"

Casey forced his eyes open, was blinded by a bright light overhead, closed them, then tried again. He knew that voice. Maggie's face was a big blur, but it gradually cleared up.

"What happened?" he croaked. His throat was dry, burning, he wanted water.

"You just came out of surgery, how're you feeling?" she asked.

"Surgery?" he asked groggily.

"The docs took three pieces of shrapnel out of your leg, but you still won't be able to walk on it for a while, you threw your ankle out when you fell, it's about the size of a softball right now and it's going to hurt for a good while."

"Kelly," Casey's fuzzy mind started to remember small details and he tried to sit up, "Where's Kelly?"

"Recuperating from his own surgery," Maggie told him, "and annoying everybody who passes by his room. The anesthesia had an unusual effect on him and now he thinks he can sing."

Casey wasn't laughing. "What surgery did he have?"

"Docs took something out of his arm they think could be a piece of the bomb," Maggie said.

"Bomb? ...that _was_ a bomb. Somebody bombed the clinic, who?"

"We don't know, every single exam room we have is filled beyond maximum capacity with everybody who was out there today, everybody's having glass taken out of their bodies, their lungs cleared for smoke, whoever set that bomb was a sick bastard. The force of the blast knocked out the windows and people one square mile away got hit with the glass."

"Anybody die?" Casey asked.

"Not yet, fortunately most people weren't seriously injured enough for that to be a strong possibility," Maggie told him.

"The doctor, the nurses..."

"They're here too, Matt, everybody got out, everybody's being examined, but it's going to take hours to get everybody sorted through, and until then you're probably going to have a few rotating roommates."

"I can go home..."

"No you're not," she said firmly. "We're keeping you and Kelly here overnight to make sure no infection sets in. It's going to take time but in a few hours we'll be able to send most of the people home."

"Can I have some water?"

"Sorry, Matt, you know the rules. There's a cup of ice right there for you. If you need something, push your button, I'm sorry but I have to get back and help with the others."

Casey turned his head and looked at the Styrofoam cup on the stand.

"Ice," he sneered, "why couldn't they put a little bourbon in it?"

He reached over and was surprised at the steady grip he had. He stabbed the plastic spoon into the chunks of ice, picked up a small square and placed it on his tongue and waited for it to melt.

Voices out in the hall got his attention. Casey put the cup aside, pushed his hands against the bed to get up, and as soon as he put any pressure on his foot, he went back down, in too much pain to even scream. Because of this, he was able to hear the conversation which sounded like it was right outside his door.

"You have to stay and let the doctor examine you."

"I can assure you," Casey knew that voice, and he could place it, Dr. Goodson, that same annoying self conceited tone he'd heard when they were at the clinic 2 days ago, "I am fine. I'm a doctor and I know my body better than anyone. And you can send my nurses home as well, they're fine."

"Dr. Goodson, you could have internal injuries..." the nurse started to say, but he cut her off.

"My dear, you realize if I stay here, this hospital is going to be swarmed with press." His voice took on a more acidic tone as he added, "Somebody shoots at an abortion provider, bombs his clinic, it's big news, everybody wants to hear about it, somebody makes an attempt on my life and those of my staff and it's big ratings for all the news stations, it's big entertainment for a lot of sick bastards out there who'd like nothing more than to see all of us dead. Those hypocrites that call themselves pro-life, but they'll murder anyone who has a different view than them. Those fanatics stand outside the gate screaming death threats at us all day, oh they've threatened for years to blow the place up, but with our security measures, I never thought it could actually happen. Now they're sorry, _now_ all of a sudden they want a doctor to do his job and clean up the mess they made, because they didn't know what they were doing and they got hurt by their own tactics, they don't mind when _they're_ the ones in need of medical services but want to deny them to every patient I help."

And the voices moved down the hall and were too muffled to make out anything further.

Casey was aware that his head was still too foggy to fully think straight, but he had the strange feeling that if he could, something that the doctor said would stick out to him. As it was he was still too hung over on the drugs to think too clearly, and groggy, and his eyelids felt like they weighed 20 pounds each, and before he knew it, his head made contact with the pillow and he was falling asleep.

* * *

Casey felt a shift in the mattress and realized somebody was in the room with him.

"What the?" he asked as he turned over.

"Shhh," Kelly said as he climbed into the other side of the bed with a mischievous smirk on his face.

"Kelly? What're you doing here?" Casey asked.

"Hiding," Kelly said simply, though that one word was enough to give away the fact he still wasn't fully recovered from the anesthesia.

"Hiding from what?" Casey noticed the gauze tied tightly around his bicep. "Kelly, what'd they take out of your arm?"

"Metal," he said, apparently any answers longer than one word were beyond his ability at the moment.

"What metal?"

"Don't know," Kelly shrugged, then burrowed under the covers.

"Didn't they have you in a room?" Casey asked.

"Yup."

"So what're you doing here?"

"Lonely."

Casey wondered how many drugs they had to put Kelly on, since he was in enough of his own right mind to know he was in far better shape mentally right now than his best friend was.

Still he had to admit, "I'm glad you're here, Kelly."

"Me too," Severide responded as he curled up behind Casey, wrapped his arms around Matt's waist and rested his head on Casey's shoulder.

"Not _that_ much!" Casey told him, "get back."

"Sorry," Kelly inched back, but kept his head on Matt's shoulder.

"Kelly, what happened out there?" Casey asked.

"Dunno."

Casey wasn't aware of falling asleep but the next thing he knew, he opened his eyes and addressed the man behind him, "Kelly."

"Hmmm?"

Casey shifted on the mattress and told the Squad lieutenant, "Get your knee out of my back!"

"Sorry."

* * *

Casey had no idea what time it was, what _day_ it was, the lights and the noises and the constant chatter of people out in the hall never stopped, and more than that it sounded like they weren't any closer to getting all the people injured by the bombing out of there than when he first woke up from surgery. Casey turned over onto his back and saw Severide still curled on his side, asleep and unaware. Casey didn't want to bother him, so he lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling and thought about everything that had happened, and tried to make some kind of sense about it.

After what felt like a couple hours, Casey sat up in the bed as something occurred to him.

"Kelly?"

"Hmm?"

"Kelly, wake up."

"My knee again?"

"No, get up," Casey shook him.

Kelly opened his eyes and he was alert this time.

"What is it, Casey?"

"Something's wrong, Kelly."

"Yeah, this is the second time somebody tried to blow me up," Kelly said as he settled back down, "at this rate, I'm going to start taking it personally."

"Get our clothes and let's get out of here," Casey told him.

"And go where? You can hardly walk," Kelly pointed out.

"We need to go talk to the bomb squad _and_ the arson people," Casey said.

"For what?" Kelly asked.

"We need to get inside that clinic," Casey said.

"Uh, _hello_, Casey, it blew up, remember? _Nobody's_ going in there," Kelly pointed out.

"We _have_ to," Casey said as he got up from the bed and struggled to walk on his swollen ankle. "I think I know what happened."

* * *

"How did you know where I lived?" Torrey asked as she let the firefighters in. She'd been released from the hospital with a hairline fracture and her arm in a sling.

"Wasn't easy," Kelly said.

"Yeah well, that death threat stuff works both ways," she said as they sat down in the living room, "sorry I can't offer you anything but I've been finding out the hard way being a one handed hostess is an exercise in futility."

"That's alright, we just had to ask you some questions," Casey said.

"Oh let me guess, did I or anyone in my organization bomb the clinic, right?" she sniped.

"No, your cameras were destroyed in the explosion, weren't they?" Kelly asked.

"Pretty much," she answered.

"Do you know if anybody outside the clinic was recording on their phones for backup?" Casey asked.

"Yeah some of us do that, but a lot of those were totaled as well, I'm really sorry, Matt, you have no idea how long we've been waiting for somebody to take us seriously."

"Can you get us the addresses for the rest of the people in your group?" Kelly asked.

She blinked. "That is a major violation of ethics, do you have any idea how much hate we get from trying to help those women?"

"We need to talk to all of them, we need to know who was recording and if any of their phones are still in working order," Kelly said.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I think if we can look at all the footage they have, we might be able to figure out what happened," Casey said.

Torrey nodded and said, "And naturally since we don't have anything to hide I should be only too happy to offer up that information."

"We get that this is hard for you," Kelly told her.

"I don't think you do," she replied bluntly, "you think the people like Goodson are the only ones who get death threats in the mail, phone calls saying someone has our children, anonymous complaints to our work trying to get us fired, bricks through the window, fire bombs on the front lawn?"

"Are you serious?" Kelly asked.

"You think I'm kidding?" Torrey gestured to her very serious face. "We don't attack the women who go to Goodson's clinic, _we're_ not the ones waving around pictures of aborted fetuses to terrify them out of it, we don't advocate death to them or to the people who perform the abortions. But if you disagree with abortions at all, you're _all_ lumped into the same group of fanatical homegrown terrorists who stop caring about kids as soon as they're out of the womb. _Our_ group matches pregnant women who don't feel they can cope with motherhood with people looking to adopt who have been rejected by all official agencies on prejudicial grounds like any history of family diseases or obesity or interracial adoption or gay couples or being a single woman, the stuff they can use to reject you for adoption is sickening, but somehow _we're_ the monsters because we don't think children should be treated as disposable waste that can just be replaced with another one later on."

"Are you married?" Kelly asked lightly, glancing towards Casey through the corner of his eye.

She smiled cynically and replied, "Yes, and I'm a happy mother of three, all of them adopted thank you very much."

"Better luck next time," Kelly murmured to Matt.

"Look, obviously you don't have the same views about abortion as we do, that's fine," Torrey said, "all we want is for women to actually think about all their options and actually know what they are instead of letting somebody trying to meet a quota scare them into thinking they're at a dead end."

"What do you mean quota?" Kelly asked.

"Goodson has a set quota of 25 women per day bare minimum, sometimes to meet that quota he forced girls who changed their minds and didn't want to go through with it. The nurses tied them down, and he carried out the abortions anyway. Some of _them_ have joined our group, but of course nobody's interested in asking about their experiences, he's a doctor so that makes him a god and anybody who disagrees with him is automatically wrong."

The two firefighters looked at each other in silent question, then Casey asked her, "What happens if he can't meet the quota?"

"He has his ways," Torrey answered. "One of our undercovers found out local johns bring in their teenage prostitutes when they get pregnant so they can get right back to work in 2 weeks. Took that the police and we still got the brush off."

The look on both men's faces said exactly what they were thinking.

"He also specializes in third trimester abortions, a lot of people won't do them, so those women come to him."

"That's illegal too, isn't it?"

"Barring actual medical emergency situations, yes they are depending on the state, for the time being, but that's always just one piece of legislature away from changing, and when that happens there suddenly won't be any crimes against murdering unborn babies, _or_ even ones already delivered and born. Kind of ironic, isn't it? Science keeps pushing the date of viability back sooner and and sooner, and politicians keep legalizing abortion later and later. Soon they won't even bother with the argument that it's okay because it's not a baby yet, then it'll be 'so it's alive, so what? It's okay to kill it if you don't want it'. Don't look at me like that, you saw the bodies, didn't you?"

Casey nodded, at that moment he didn't trust himself to talk.

"Did you wonder what they would've been if they'd lived? What they would be in 10-20 years?"

Casey sighed and lowered his gaze.

"You came to me, you sought _me_ out, remember? So you can put up with a few minutes of what I've been trying to explain to people for 10 years," Torrey turned to Kelly, "you're a fireman, did you ever stop to think what would happen if you'd never been born?"

"Not really," he answered.

Casey weakly laughed, tried to make a joke or he thought he'd lose his mind. "He's an egotist, he can't imagine the world without him."

"You ask people that question, they always say 'I wouldn't be here, and I wouldn't know it so I don't care'. The real question is, who would take your place?" Torrey asked. "You're a firefighter, if you weren't here there'd be other firefighters, one of them would be working in your place right?"

"Yeah," Kelly said.

"But would they know what you know? Would they be able to save all the people you did? You all have the same training, but everybody has their own instincts, you can't teach that, and you can't change them. Has there ever been a time in your career that somebody lived only because you made a snap judgment, there wasn't time to consider protocol or protocol wouldn't work?"

"All the time," Kelly answered.

"See?" Torrey asked. "The question isn't just what will you experience in life, it's who will you impact, and how will you? Everybody has an impact on somebody else's life, and nobody else can have the same impact of that person."

Severide glanced over at Casey and for a split second tried to imagine what life at 51 would be like if he'd never been born. Then he thought of Andy...what would life had been like without his best friend? The idea of somebody else taking that place, filling that spot, it made Kelly's blood turn cold, it just wasn't possible, it wouldn't work, it couldn't work. Chills ran down his spine as another thought occurred to him, 51 without Boden, they'd all had the misfortune of working under incompetent pieces of crap in between Boden's reign as chief, the idea of him never being there and making their station house what it was, and the fate of 51 being left to some jackass like Pridgen who had no idea what he was doing and was only out for himself, now _that_ was horrifying.

"Now take that times millions, and we can't figure out why society is in as bad of shape as it is?" Torrey's voice drew Kelly back to the here and now. "Nobody wants to think it could possibly be because all the people who would've made things better, were all wiped out because a few licensed butchers and their PR mouthpieces terrified millions of girls and women into thinking the only choice they had was no choice, all so they could turn a profit, get a kickback from somebody somewhere."

"Got any evidence of _that_?" Casey asked.

"Unfortunately no, but you _know_ when the board of health isn't showing up for years, that somebody gave them the order not to come, when the cops are called every week and nobody shows up, somebody told them not to respond," she said.

"Maybe we can't get the whole conspiracy ring but if the cops could take out Goodson and his staff, that'd have to be a start," Kelly told her.

"I told you before that not everybody who lines up outside the fence knows each other, there _are_ some psychos who join the cause for their own deluded reasons who might actually pull a stunt like this, but they are not our people and we do what we can to keep them out. It's funny how the side that claims to be _so_ open minded is so quick to lump anybody who doesn't blindly agree with them into the same basket of radicals, they talk about choice but bite your head off if you actually offer anyone any other options that don't involve walking in their door. What really scares me is a lot of those people _do_ have kids...and what the hell are they teaching them from this example?" Torrey asked.

"If you don't want to give us their addresses, can you call them all here?" Casey asked. "It's important we find out what they were able to catch before the explosion."

Torrey inhaled and answered, "Now _that_, I can do."


	5. Chapter 5

"Come on, Casey, let me do it."

"You're enjoying this too much, Kelly."

"This is the second time I've been blown up, let me do it," Severide said.

Casey rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Oh shit, look at that," Kelly said as they pulled up to the house.

"I told you," Casey said as they looked at the huge two-story house, the down payment of which no doubt cost more than all the combined salaries of everyone at 51.

"Let's go get the prick," Kelly said as he reached for his door. They got out of the car and headed up the sidewalk, Casey with a very obvious limp.

"You okay?" Kelly asked.

"I'm good," Casey said, though he took the hand offered to help him stay upright.

They climbed up the steps to the huge wraparound porch.

"Ready?" Kelly asked.

"Let's do this."

Kelly beat on the door like he was going to bust it down. They waited, from inside they could hear footsteps, then the overhead porch light came on, and the door slowly opened. A man in his late 50s or early 60s opened the door, he was taller than both firefighters and seemed to tower over them, though he had what was supposed to be a friendly smile on his face.

"Yes, can I help you?"

"Dr. Nathan Goodson." Kelly and Casey took out their badges and Kelly told him, "You're under arrest."

The older man bent his head and looked at the badges. "You're not police."

"No, we're with the Chicago Fire Department," Casey said as they pocketed them.

"I wasn't aware the fire department made arrests," the doctor said, almost laughing.

"Oh we can, citizens' arrests," Kelly told him as he forced the doctor back by inching his way in the door.

"I see, and what is it you're arresting me for?" Goodson asked, still acting like it was a joke.

The two firefighters found themselves in the doctor's living room, which was exquisitely furnished. Antique chairs in pristine condition,a leather couch that could seat five, brand new hardwood floors with no scuff marks, a grand piano resting by one wall, a crystal chandelier.

"Assault and battery, destruction of property, fraud, money laundering, attempted murder, illegal abortion, and murder," Kelly ignored what they were seeing and stuck to the matter at hand.

Now Dr. Goodson was openly laughing. "I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

"We were there when your clinic was bombed," Casey said.

"That was one of those fanatic pro-lifers picketing outside the clinic, they always try stuff like that."

"Well there's a problem with that answer, 'doctor'," Kelly told him. "Because none of them had been in your clinic that day, or the day before."

"You're really going to take the word of a bunch of nutjobs like that?" the man actually seemed offended.

"No, we take the word of their cameras...see you thought they'd all been destroyed in the explosion, and most of them were...but with everybody carrying a camera on their phone these days, there was still plenty of footage to sift through...and everything they'd been recording the days prior to that was already safely stored away, 24 hour surveillance confirming the only people who went in and out of your clinic were you, your staff, your patients."

"And us, when we came in and rushed 15-year-old Brianne Hopkins to Chicago Med, because you botched her abortion," Casey added.

It was unnerving to both firemen how calm and collected the doctor was. At the name of the girl, his face took on a different expression as he completely disregarded everything they'd previously said and asked, "Oh yes, how is that lovely girl doing?"

"She nearly died because of you, you sick bastard," Casey said.

"All to find out she was never even pregnant," Kelly added. "You didn't take a baby out of her, you knew she didn't have one in her, you scraped her uterine wall so she'd bleed and think you performed an abortion."

"Which made her septic because the tools used weren't even sterilized between her and the last woman you used them on," Casey concluded.

Goodson laughed and said, "You firemen really do have an imagination."

Casey took a step towards the man to throttle him, but Kelly wordlessly grabbed him by the arm and motioned that he would handle it. He stepped forward and got in the doctor's face.

"I think you were hoping because you screwed around so long, that she'd die before they got her to the hospital, and since most deaths don't get an autopsy, especially if there isn't somebody to advocate for the deceased, that you'd bury that secret with her and no one would be the wiser."

"And it's standard protocol once we take patients to the hospital, they're turned over to the doctors and that's that," Casey said, "but we checked in with the doctor, and he wanted to know what the hell was going on."

"Maybe the doctors at the other hospitals your patients are usually rushed to are too busy or just don't care to ask questions, or even pay attention to the details," Severide said, "but the people at Chicago Med are on the ball and they tend to notice things that don't add up."

"Like an onslaught of women and teenage girls who all came in and tested positive for STDs, all of whom had recently been to your clinic to be provided the services you offered," Casey added.

"Where again, you didn't bother sterilizing or cleaning the instruments used, and in fact, we talked to somebody who knows about abortions, and she said there are certain instruments specifically made to only be used once and disposed of...but you re-used them on several patients, didn't you?"

Through all this, Goodson maintained an amused expression.

"I certainly understand the general consensus that firefighters don't have much to do with their days if you have enough free time to come up with wild ideas like this," he said.

Now it was Kelly who just about moved in for the kill. Casey snagged his wrist and signaled for him to stand down.

"Nothing wild about it, and that's why you had your own clinic bombed," Matt told him.

The doctor busted out laughing wholeheartedly.

"I bombed my own clinic? Why would I do something like that?"

"To make sure the police couldn't investigate, because it's a perfect way to destroy all the evidence that you couldn't just move out of there," Casey answered.

"There was nothing to investigate."

"I don't think so," Kelly replied. "I think your receptionist recognized our paramedic when she came in the next day as a patient asking about you, and you realized someone might actually come looking around, and when they found what we found, you'd be in prison. I couldn't figure out what she meant when she said they didn't do pregnancy tests...only abortions...how would you do an abortion on a woman you weren't sure if she was pregnant or not? But then we talked to the doctor treating Brianne, and we put it together. That's how you made your daily quota, by jabbing women who weren't pregnant and just making them _think_ they'd had an abortion and charging them for the privilege of making them bleed enough to be convincing, making them sick and nearly killing them was just an added bonus for the fee. And especially if the cops found out the book work showing you were meeting that quota even _while_ you were 'volunteering' at another clinic halfway across the city at the same time, then they would know your unlicensed staff barely out of high school was performing illegal abortions themselves to keep the numbers up, and that's why you had to blow the place up, so nobody could ever put together what all had been going on there."

"I am a doctor, I _save_ lives, I _help_ women, what would I know about making a bomb?" Goodson asked.

"Probably nothing, just like the vast majority of the people picketing outside your clinic," Kelly said. "But we did some checking, and that brother-in-law of yours, you know, the one who works in construction and has extensive knowledge about controlled explosives to demolish old buildings...yeah, that one, he'd have a pretty good idea how to build a bomb, and make it look like some lunatic fringe member did it."

"But again, there was a problem," Casey told him. "We had the experts go over the place, and they determined that there were actually several bombs placed on the first and second floors of the clinic...a whack job might be able to sneak one bomb in...but half a dozen, on two floors, unnoticed? It doesn't happen. And _why_ would anybody who wanted the world to know what you were doing, do anything that would destroy any proof of all the bodies you kept stored around in those rooms on the first floor? No bodies, no evidence of murder, and after that blast, there would be very little still intact for anybody who investigate and _nothing_ for a trial jury to be walked through for a visual aid."

"But the arson people found something separate from the points of impact...proof of an accelerant poured on the floor in one room where there was a ton of blackened remains...anybody else would think it was just debris from the explosion. We had it analyzed, and it was paper...the remains of hundreds of papers. Destroying your files would also make it damn hard for the cops to find any hard evidence to charge you with," Kelly said.

"But not all of them were destroyed." Casey took a phone out of his pocket and played a video on it for the doctor to see that showed Dr. Goodson and a couple of the women from his staff carrying file boxes out to his car parked behind the clinic.

"Most of the protesters kept their phones recording despite the cameras set up at the fence line. And just before the bomb went off, they started tell us that you and your staff were moving...moving what? I was in the hospital with a concussion after that so it took me a while to remember it. But you should've been more careful whose room you talk outside of at the hospital. I heard what you said to the nurse...you blamed the protesters for setting the bomb, you said 'now they're sorry, because they're the ones that got hurt'. You insisted you and your staff were _all_ fine and fit to be discharged...Doctor Goodson, how do you not know there's a bomb in your clinic, but somehow all of you get outside just before it goes off and walk away unscathed?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," the doctor replied. "This is too outrageous to be taken seriously. Why would I bomb my own clinic, my livelihood for 30 years?"

"Several reasons," Kelly answered. "I mean I'm sure that place had some..." he just about vomited at the word, "sentimental value..."

"But you bought it 30 years ago for a very affordable price of $40,000, because it was already run down by then, and you just never bothered to have the place fully fixed up. Of course since nobody's been there for years to inspect the place, there's no fair appraisal for it, but you _did_ have an insurance policy for the building to the tune of $5 million, that would definitely be enough to uproot to a new location and pocket the rest, especially since we're well aware of the kinds of corners you cut to save on costs," Casey sneered at the last words.

Dr. Goodson sat in a wingback chair and laughed, "Really, this is amusing, two firemen who want to play detective."

"Oh we had help," Kelly told him.

"And not only did blowing up the clinic ensure it couldn't be properly investigated by police, even if they _could_ make an arrest, that clinic would've been the first place the jury was taken to, to walk the corridors, examine the rooms, see the blood stains, the filthy instruments, the roaches, the contrast to the well kept front lobby, versus what was really behind those doors in the back rooms. They would've convicted on that alone before the trial was even over," Casey explained. "It was a measure of self preservation, cutting off the nose to _save_ the face."

"And the annoying pro-life people would take the fall for it...what's one more attack on an abortionist in the news? Everybody's come to expect them, nobody would ever _dream_, that an abortionist would sabotage himself and blow up his own clinic," Kelly said. "But _none_ of those people would be crazy enough to put their own children in the line of fire if they _knew_ the building was going to explode. See, you've spent so many years stereotyping them to your staff and your patients, you forgot they actually _care_ about keeping their kids safe."

"Instead, last Saturday, 12 kids between the ages of 2 and 14 were treated at Chicago Med for injuries sustained in the bombing, lacerations, broken bones, inhaling the smoke and the dust," Casey said. "I was there, I _saw_ it, I _saw_ those people, none of them had any idea what was happening."

"You on the other hand were only too eager to get out of there, I guess you didn't like the odds of being pinned in at the hospital surrounded by dozens of people you intentionally injured," Kelly added. "Somebody might put it together."

"And somebody did," Casey pointed to himself, "and now _you_, are going to prison."

"On what charge?" Dr. Goodson asked nonchalantly. "Your claims are histrionic at best, you can't prove anything."

The front door flew open, and Hank Voight stepped in. "We can now."

"And who are you?" Goodson asked.

"Sergeant Hank Voight," he flashed his badge. "You just got in a couple hours ago, right?"

"What business is that of yours?"

"Well it's just that my people already went through this house this afternoon while you were out," Voight told him, and the firemen saw the smug smirk vanish from the doctor's face.

"On what grounds?"

"On the grounds of we rounded up your whole staff and they flipped on you like a cheeseburger," Hank answered. "They were very eager to tell all they knew to the judge who signed off on the warrant, the same judge who by the way came down with me on Saturday and saw first hand what happened to all those people."

"Get it?" Casey asked the cop.

"The files they were caught on camera moving out of the clinic in the hours before the bombing, were found in the cellar, along with a safe, containing two and a half million dollars in cash," Voight said. "A doctor that poormouths his practice as an excuse to reuse dirty surgical instruments on poor women and teen girls who come to him terrified out of their minds looking for help and have to steal from their neighbors and sell drugs to rake together $2,000 for an abortion? A jury's gonna just love that, along with all the pictures they took of this place."

"This is preposterous!" Dr. Goodson shot to his feet.

"Ah shut up," Kelly shoved him back in his chair.

"Those records revealed several links in the chain of this conspiracy," Voight told the firemen. "Judges, politicians, lawyers, police commissioners, doctors, kickbacks to do abortions on poor girls, teenage offenders, so that the cycle of their home environments don't repeat and weigh on the taxpayers in more welfare, juvenile court, foster care, etc., doctors who refer more black and Hispanic patients than white patients, convincing them it's in their best interest to abort their babies, because they just don't have a fair shake at life, and records of how much money was 'donated' by each link, to 'fund' the clinic, to make sure these women got the 'best' care possible."

"What about the rest of them?" Casey asked.

"Oh, we already busted them earlier," Voight answered nonchalantly, and everybody felt a surge of amusement from the panicked look in the doctor's eyes. "They were very happy to cooperate and roll on him, for lesser charges."

"Lesser-"

"Cool it, Casey, when you add it all up, they're still looking at the rest of their unnatural lives," Voight told him. He looked down at the doctor in the chair and told him, "And you, friend, are going to be the bottom of that prison food chain. You know, hiring girls halfway through high school isn't the smartest career move, when they're facing hard prison time, they get very good at remembering what happened to those three women that didn't walk out of your clinic."

Casey felt his stomach drop, but he had to know. "What happened to them?"

"In the back of the clinic, there's a freight elevator," Voight said, "goes down to the cellar, where there's a loading dock...there were some chemical drums."

Kelly squeezed his eyes shut at the mental image.

"Where are they?" Casey asked.

"They were in a vacant lot where a lot of junk got stored."

The doctor shifted his eyes towards Voight, "_Were_?"

Voight merely nodded and answered, "They're at the medical examiner's office."

* * *

"Time for the perp walk," Kelly said as he and Casey jerked Dr. Goodson, whose hands were now cuffed behind his back, to his feet and escorted him to the door. Upon walking out on the porch they were met with bright lights and catcalls.

"Smile for the camera!"

"Say 'I'm ruined'!"

"Oh these will be nice for the front page."

Most of the reception was from the various members of Firehouse 51 taking pictures and filming with their phones, though there were a couple other members among them.

"The Sun Times will have a field day with this one," Kenny Bloomfeld announced.

"Comes in handy to have a journalist as a next door neighbor," Boden commented to Voight.

"Alright, we'll take it from here," Voight told the two lieutenants as Halstead and Antonio took over manhandling Dr. Goodson to the squad car. He held his hand out to Casey and Severide and told them, "Hand over your phones."

They did. "He never confessed to anything, what good's the video?" Casey asked.

"If we can get them accepted as evidence," Voight answered, "the jury is going to see the look on his face when he realizes we searched his house...that is not the face a normal person makes at their privacy merely being violated...that's a guilty man who _knows_ he's been found out."

"I thought there were going to be more people here," Kelly said, noting the lackluster turnout for the doctor's arrest.

"Yeah well, that's something you'll have to get used to," Voight told them. "Most mainstream reporters aren't going to touch this story with a 10 foot pole, media doesn't cover cases that put abortionists in a bad light, no matter _what_ they done."

"So they were right," Kelly said in disbelief, "If somebody killed this guy the news would be all over it, but he kills innocent victims and nobody's going to report it?"

"Even with all the other people we busted in this ring, there's a good chance it still will never see the light of day in the press," Voight told them.

"What?" both lieutenants asked.

"It's a politics game, you know that, and the politicians own the media, you know that too, it sucks but there's nothing we can do about it, the only people who are going to cover it are going to be smaller independent news sources that won't see near as much coverage, that's just the way it is," Voight explained. "If we're lucky, State's Attorney tries everybody separately, makes it a lot less confusing for juries and there's enough evidence to convict all of them individually. Even that process is going to take several years to finish, so if you were hoping for a speedy trial and a quick conviction, you're going to be disappointed."

"At least the son of a bitch is finally going to be in jail," Casey said. "That has to mean something for the victims and their families."

"Yeah, but if something happens and he suicides in his cell while waiting trial, nobody else finds out what he did, and he officially goes down in the books as a 'good man' who 'helped' people, and we can all agree that's the last thing we want," Voight told him.

"Unfortunately," Otis said, "since we're directly involved in the case that kind of puts a gag order on any chance of me doing a podcast on this."

"That'd only reach about 300 people anyway," Mouch commented.

"That'd be 300 more than _will_ know about it," Otis said. "Luckily I have a plan. A while back I was dating this woman who has her own vlog, and she would be only too happy to tell all her followers about this case."

"And as for me," Boden's next door neighbor said, "I don't know the Sun Times will appreciate this story coming from the gardening journalist. But I'll hand it over to the guy covering the current events and see what he wants to do with it."

"Appreciate it, Kenny," Wallace told him.

"So now what?" Kelly asked.

"Go home. We got it from here," Hank answered.

"Thanks, Voight," Casey said, feeling like the nightmare was finally over.

"Thanks for bringing this case to my attention," Voight responded as he shook the lieutenant's hand.

It had been a long, exhausting day for everybody from Firehouse 51, and everybody was looking forward to finally going home and getting some rest. Gradually everybody left, and only the two lieutenants remained.

"Doesn't make sense," Kelly said as he looked at the house. "How does a guy get away with stuff like that for over 20 years and nobody says anything? How does he get in everybody's pockets so nobody even dares investigate him?"

Casey shrugged. "I don't know."

"You heading home?" Kelly asked as they headed back to his car.

Casey opened his door and responded, "I'm going to stop by Med and visit with someone, you want to come?"

"Sure."

* * *

Kelly and Casey had gone to Chicago Med and gone to see Brianne Hopkins, who was slowly but surely recovering, with her grandmother sitting at her bedside. The firefighters told both of them the news about Dr. Goodson's arrest, which seemed to be a huge relief to both of them. After that, Severide drove Casey back to his apartment, and Casey noted the late hour and invited Severide to stay the night and save him the drive back to his apartment for the night.

Half an hour after they arrived, Severide walked past the bedroom and saw the light was still on. He stuck his head in and saw Casey changed in his pajamas, laying curled on his side in the middle of the bed, glancing up at the ceiling.

"You okay?" Kelly asked.

Casey inhaled and sighed. "Yeah."

Kelly padded into the room.

"You sure?"

Casey nodded less than convincingly.

"You want me to stay with you tonight?" Kelly asked.

Matt looked at him, and thought about it, and nodded again, more convincingly this time.

"Okay."

Casey didn't move from his spot, which he regretted when he felt Severide climb in behind him and snake his arms around his waist again and felt the Squad lieutenant's weight pressed against him.

"Kelly!"

"What?"

"Cut it out, that's too awkward," Casey said.

"Then turn over," Kelly told him.

With another sigh, Casey did, this time he was facing Severide, who put his arms around him again, this time they wrapped around his upper back.

"There, better?" Kelly asked cynically.

With a small, tired smile, Casey nodded. "Yeah, it's fine." He closed his eyes and almost drifted off to sleep.

The feeling of Severide's lips pressing against his temple drew him right back into full consciousness and he opened his eyes widely in shock.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you 15 years ago," Kelly told him sincerely.

Casey looked at him and said only in response, "That's not what all this was about."

"No, it's not," Kelly agreed, "but I'm still sorry."

"It's okay," Casey replied.

Kelly pulled one arm away from Casey and reached over to shut off the light on the nightstand.

"No!"

Kelly's whole body jerked at Casey's outburst.

Casey looked at him with wide eyes and said quietly as he slipped an arm around Kelly's back, "Leave it on tonight."

It took Kelly a few seconds to recover from his shock, but he was compliant. "Okay, sure, I get it."

And indeed he did. If the events of the last week proved anything to Severide, it was that monsters were definitely real, they just took on human forms.

A/N: This was going to be the last chapter but it ran on and had to be divided into two parts.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Last chapter! A big thank you to everybody for reading and reviewing, especially given the sensitive subject matter.

Casey woke up and was met with the bright light he'd left on. He looked at the clock, 2 in the morning. He sighed and tried to rouse Severide.

"Kelly."

"Hm?"

"Kelly, wake up."

Severide's eyes stayed closed and half his face was pressed in the pillow as he got out a half slurred, "My knee again?"

"No."

Kelly still didn't open his eyes as he asked, "You gonna throw up again?"

"No."

Kelly opened his eyes and saw his friend looking like the weight of the whole planet was on his shoulders.

"What's wrong, Casey? Watchu thinking about?"

Casey focused his eyes over towards the wall and answered dryly, "Something I'm not allowed to have an opinion about because I'll never be pregnant."

Severide growled irritatedly and remarked, "Eh to hell with that politically correct crap, what's on your mind?"

Casey pulled away from him and sat up and told him, "It about killed me when Hallie broke up with me...but I was also relieved."

"Why?" Kelly asked.

"She was always bringing up how she couldn't be starting a family during her residency, she couldn't afford to come up pregnant, so we were careful, we used protection most of the time, she kept track of her ovulation dates, but she would always bring up how even that wasn't foolproof, there was always a chance...I started laying awake nights worrying if she did, if she'd have it aborted. I don't know if she actually would've, but it was on my mind and I couldn't get away from it. It would be _my_ child too, but I'm not allowed to do anything to stop her if that's what she decides." He looked at Kelly, "Do you have any idea how terrifying that is? Somebody can kill your baby and you don't have any say in it?"

Kelly looked at him with a very somber expression.

"I don't know, I guess I just never thought about it...until this past week I never thought about a _lot_ of things," he said. "Real eye opening."

Casey looked at him, and his face changed to one of awkward amusement. "You're seeing one of the women from the group, aren't you?"

Severide wasn't able to suppress the wry grin on his face. "What can I say? They're passionate and they know what they want."

Casey groaned and hit his head against Kelly's shoulder. "You are hopeless."

"Hey, you might try it," Kelly told him. "At least you wouldn't have to worry like you did with Hallie."

"Hm...true," Matt conceded. He rolled on his back and hit his head against the pillow. "_Years_, Voight said it'd take _years_ for there to even be a trial...a conviction...what if he gets acquitted?"

"Not gonna happen, Casey, there's _no_ way the jury won't convict," Kelly tried to assure him.

"How're everyone that he did this to going to wait for that?" Casey asked. "It's maddening."

"You thinking about Brianne again?"

"That poor girl...everything she's been through..."

"Hey, when the time comes, she'll be fine," Kelly told him.

"How can you be sure?" Casey asked.

"We'll be right there with her," he answered. "She might not have had anyone with her when she went into that butcher shop, but she's going to have the whole firehouse behind her when the ASA calls her."

Casey sighed and said, "Of course you realize the bigger issue here, don't you?"

"Trying not to," Kelly said.

"How many more places like that are out there, that everybody knows about, and nobody's doing anything about?" Casey asked.

"Can't think about that, Casey, we got one of them shut down, that guy is going to rot in prison, he can't do anything to anymore women or girls, that's a victory, we need to take it."

"But there're always more," Casey said.

"I know...hopefully when this whole thing _does_ go to court, it'll wake people up," Kelly said.

"You heard Voight, nobody's going to hear about it," Casey replied.

"Nowhere near who all should, but I don't think our friends from the fence are just going to drop the matter now that Goodson's behind bars," Severide pointed out. "I think they're going to be _very_ vocal about the whole thing, clear up to his sentencing."

"We can hope."

* * *

3 years later-

Casey and Severide were seated in the courtroom alongside Brianne Hopkins and her grandmother. In the gallery the rest of 51's 2nd Watch was scattered among several other young women and their families, women who the State's Attorney had found in its investigation against Goodson, who all had testified to similar stories of botched and forced abortions at his clinic years earlier when they were in high school, some in junior high, many of whom had nearly died and had to be hospitalized afterwards.

Some of them, like Brianne, hadn't even been pregnant, but it hadn't stopped Goodson from poking around in them with his filthy instruments and perforating their uteri, their intestines, their bowels, some who actually had had the procedures developed abscesses the size of oranges, others nearly died because parts of the babies' bodies hadn't been removed, in a few instances, most of the fetus was still intact in their bodies when they were discharged from the clinic, after having paid $2,000 in cash for the privilege. Most of them had suffered with health complications and fertility issues in the years since. A couple had gotten pregnant again and carried to full term, their babies had also struggled with health problems in their entire short lives. The jury had heard all of this though the defense had argued it bore no relevance on the case at hand and was merely an emotional ploy on the SA's part to ignore the facts. There had been virtually no press coverage through the trial and it was only towards the end after most facts had been offered into evidence that a couple people from the big named news syndicates finally bothered to turn up at all, which spoke volumes about where the media laid its priorities when the defendant wasn't a cop who shot an unarmed black teen, or a CEO who embezzled millions, or a politician accused of sexual misconduct, but an abortionist who had maimed and harmed hundreds, even thousands of girls and women, and was standing trial for murdering three of them.

Through the whole trial, Nathan Goodson sat at the defense table, still dressed in very expensive clothes, as opposed to the poor prisoners who made their court appearances in standard Cook County prison jumpsuits, with a self assured grin on his face, confident that he was going to walk out of the courthouse a free man. And his lawyers had used tactics that shifted a lot of blame back to the terrified young women who had sought him out because they honestly didn't think they had any other options, insinuating everything that happened to them was their own fault for getting an abortion in the first place; all the while proclaiming Dr. Goodson was a good, upstanding pillar of the community who devoted his whole life to helping people, helping people from neighborhoods no other doctors would set foot in, let alone open a clinic in to help the poor and minorities that everybody else presumably turned a blind eye to. Even the women who as high school students had been dragged to the clinic by their parents, their grandmothers, crying, pleading to keep their babies, the defense had a way of making them look at fault for their own fates as well. Even Matt Casey himself and the other members of 51 who had responded to the call at the clinic, all took their turns on the stand and had their testimony shredded by lawyers who pointed out _they_ were not experts on abortion and _they_ were not experts on the laws for abortion and just because they were personally, unprofessionally, disgusted by the things they had seen, that didn't _prove_ that any laws had been broken. Casey himself had just barely held himself together when his own personal beliefs about abortion were brought up doing cross-examination, to make him out to be a biased anti-choicer who was personally out to destroy a good doctor's reputation. And given it had been subtly leaked out that both the State and the defense had specifically chosen self admitted pro-choice citizens as the bulk of the jury, only choosing undecideds for the rest, and excluding all self proclaimed pro-life people from jury duty, it was truly anybody's guess what the verdict would be.

And here they were at the moment of truth. The jury had been out for a stomach churning six days, and everybody had just been called back for the verdict. Casey looked over at Brianne and noticed the recent high school graduate had turned a shade gray watching everyone reenter the courtroom. He reached over and squeezed her hand supportively.

"Has the jury reached a verdict?" the judge asked.

"We have, Your Honor," the foreman answered.

"On the first count, Murder in the Second Degree of Marisol Lopez, how do you find?"

"We find the defendant guilty."

The courtroom exploded in outbursts from all sides, the judge called for ordered and threatened to remove anybody who didn't comply.

"On the second count, Murder in the Second Degree of Mira Uthman, how do you find?"

"We find the defendant guilty."

"On the third count, Murder in the Second Degree of Irene Pham, how do you find?"

"Guilty."

"On the fourth count, attempted murder-"

Casey felt like his lungs were deprived of oxygen but he had no recollection of joining in the rest of the courtroom in their screams of victory. He turned his head and saw Brianne had slumped back in her seat, disbelief, and excruciating relief.

The charges were continuously read out ranging from the felonies for attempted murder and infanticide, to all the charges associated with bombing his own clinic and injuring everybody within the vicinity, to the lesser misdemeanors of abortion law violations and simple assault on some of the patients, all answered by the jury foreman with a renowned 'guilty'. Casey looked over at Goodson. The doctor was no longer smiling. And instead, Casey grinned victoriously.

* * *

"Sentencing will be in a couple of weeks, Goodson's going to be _lucky_ if he gets life with no parole," Kelly said as they headed down the corridor from the courtroom.

"I told you," Voight said to Casey.

Matt looked at the sergeant and told him, "Thanks, Hank."

"Don't thank me," Voight replied. "You're the one that made this all happen, Casey. _Nobody_ would've put it all together if you hadn't parked yourself on Trudy's desk."

"I'll have to remember that," Kelly commented.

Voight chuckled and told the fire lieutenants, "I'll see you round."

A few seconds after he headed for the elevator, Casey saw Brianne and her grandmother coming their way.

"Mr. Casey?" the 18 year old approached him.

Casey's eyes bugged out as she threw her arms around him.

"Thank you for saving my life," she said as she pulled back. Her eyes shone with tears as she told him, "I know you said what you do is just your job...but you're wrong..." she shook her head, "I couldn't remember much about that day for the longest time, but it finally came back to me after a while. I remember you yelling at the doctor and the nurses...I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you."

In 20 years Casey had told thousands of people that the things they did that saved others' lives was just a job, it was just what they did, but right now he couldn't bring himself to say it again. He _wanted_ to tell Brianne that anybody else in his position would've done the same thing. Then he remembered his own lieutenant 18 years ago, and he knew that that was a lie.

Then something else occurred to Casey. Brianne was 18 years old, and he thought back to that woman he'd seen at that first chop shop, her baby would also have been 18 years old by now, and if that woman had made a different choice, both she _and_ her child would've probably still been alive today. He looked at this girl whose life had been so close to ending, and now was full of so much promise. In a way it reminded him of that car accident they'd responded to years ago, one girl dies, one survives, because one drove, one was the passenger, no rhyme or reason at all. That thought made his throat tighten with tears that didn't make it up to his eyes.

"I'm just glad that you're alright and were able to make a full recovery," he told the girl.

"I'm...I did more than that...I'm pregnant, I really am this time," Brianne announced. The surprise on both firefighters' faces was nothing short of amusing. "The doctor says everything looks good so far, I'm due in May."

"Congratulations!" Kelly responded.

"That's fantastic," Casey added.

"I didn't want to say anything until after the verdict. I was just _hoping_ they wouldn't let him go. I'm going to find out what it is next week," Brianne told them. "If it's a boy, I'm going to name him after you."

Casey was at a loss for words, though he felt a heat rising in his cheeks.

Brianne's grandmother stepped beside her and got between the two firemen and told them, "I want to thank both of you for saving my granddaughter, and giving me a great grandchild." And the short woman with half her hair gray and a fair set of wrinkles on her face, locked one arm around each firefighter's neck in a hug and both men groaned as they felt their spines about pop.

"We appreciate that, ma'am," Casey said when they pulled back, "but we can't take much credit. Brianne's a natural born fighter."

"Yeah and now we know where she gets it from," Kelly added as he rubbed the back of his neck.

* * *

As the two lieutenants left the courthouse, they saw a lot of police standing around trying to cordon people back from the sidewalk, and a lot of people gathered round. Kelly spotted Torrey and Shawn standing off to the side and he and Casey went over and asked, "What happened?"

From that angle, both firemen were able to make out blood red stains all over the sidewalk, _and_ on Dr. Goodson, who had his wrists handcuffed in front of him and who was being supported by two police officers.

"Well we always knew that guy would go too far sooner or later," Torrey said. "But I think today he actually got it right."

Over all the commotion, Kelly heard a familiar voice, and among the crowd he noted that same 50-something scraggly man who had thrown paint on Sylvie when they went to the clinic. He was currently being restrained by two cops, which was no small feat as the man continued to writhe around shouting at the doctor, "Baby killer!"

"Well for once he hit the right target," Kelly noted in amusement.

"Yeah, but as usual, there's no press here to cover it," Casey commented.

"Just as well, even with 3 murder convictions they'd _still_ make him out to be the innocent victim of a brutal assault," Torrey responded.

"You're probably right."

"At least this time, justice finally prevailed," Shawn mentioned.

"Yeah..." Casey looked at the doctor in handcuffs, who up till now had been untouchable for nobody knew how many years. "I just wish this was the last time that it _had_ to."

"Things _will_ change after this, Matt," Torrey said. "It won't be fast, and there's going to be a lot of resistance from the kind of people that let Goodson skate for 20 years. The press was no help with this case, and it doesn't matter what laws are passed, they won't stop people like Goodson, all they can do is come in after the fact assuming all the evidence wasn't destroyed, assuming anybody even thinks there's a case worth caring about. The only thing that _will_ stop it, is for more people to find out what really goes on in those kinds of places...and there were 12 people in that box today who before this case, never had to think about it. Guys like Goodson moved from back alleys to back rooms of clinics where nobody else is allowed to know what they do and everybody just assumes a licensed doctor _must_ be a good guy who cares about all his patients. Now I don't have any delusions that we're going to see any of those jurors at our next meeting, but...they _won't_ forget what they've seen and heard throughout this case, and what they were a witness to, will definitely impact the next generations of their families."

"I guess that's something," Casey said.

"It's a start," Shawn replied.

"Well there's something else," Torrey pointed to the corner where several of the women who had testified, and their families, were gathered around talking to each other as they got ready to leave. "They all lived it firsthand, they definitely will _never_ forget what they went through, which unfortunately makes them the voice of experience when another scared girl doesn't know which way to turn. That's the only way things will change, by helping women figure out what all their options actually _are_ instead of letting some sociopath with a nursing staff get to them first and _tell_ them what their choice is."

"So in other words, your work's never done," Kelly said.

She shrugged, "Well we all have a calling. You ever wonder what you'd do every day if you weren't a fireman?"

"Not too often," he answered.

"There you go."

Casey was only half listening to the conversation. He watched as the cops loaded Goodson into the back of a prison van, and then it left the block, and Matt hoped with every fiber of his being, that that truly would be the last time he would ever lay eyes on the man.

* * *

Everybody who'd been at the courthouse for the verdict had long since gone their separate ways. Kelly and Casey had had the foresight to park three blocks down to ensure they could actually get out around everyone else. As they walked down, Kelly noticed that Matt had been quiet since everybody split up. He looked over at Casey and asked him, "You okay?"

Casey looked straight ahead but answered, "I feel _better_ than I have in a long time."

"Hey, you helped make sure that Nazi won't ever see the light of day again, you should feel great," Kelly said with a grin. But he noticed Casey's mood didn't lighten. "What's wrong?"

"I still want kids," Casey told him. "I want to meet a woman, marry her, and have kids. And if that's not too much to ask for, why isn't it happening?"

"Just haven't found the right one yet," Kelly replied.

"Why is it so hard to _find_ the right one?" Casey wanted to know.

"I couldn't tell you," Severide said. "Feel free to note I am _still_ single and childless."

"Yeah, but it doesn't bother you," Casey said.

"How do you know?" Kelly asked.

Casey looked at him with a slightly surprised look on his face. "Sorry." He turned his head the other way and shook it hopelessly. "All those women who don't want or can't keep their babies, and I can't meet a woman to even have _one_ kid with."

He felt Severide's arm draped across his shoulders and Kelly told him, "Maybe _you_ ought to talk to those people to see about adopting one. Maybe you're meant to get the kid first and _then_ someone to help raise it. Not all families are traditional you know."

Casey looked back at Severide, and thought about it, and responded, "I guess it wouldn't hurt to look into it."

"Besides, single guy with a cute kid, that'd be a catch to a lot of women," Kelly added.

Casey laughed in response.

"Hey, seriously, you know we'd all help you, and on shift Cindy could watch the baby until you got home," Kelly pointed out. "Whatever you do, I know you'll be a hell of a father, you'll be great with kids."

"How do you know?" Casey asked.

Kelly looked him in the eyes and answered, "Look how hard you already fought the last three years to protect them _and_ their mothers. You're one of a kind, Matt."

"Wasn't that Torrey's point? We _all_ are," Casey replied as they walked down the street.


End file.
